With the outburst of Covid-19 in 2020, many public schools had to adapt something they have never done before: virtual learning.
Whether it was through Zoom or Canvas, students and teachers learned how to learn from home. Due to this, many schools realized that this achievable concept could be used again.
AMI (Alternative Methods of Instruction) days were established by the Missouri Department of Education in the 2020-2021 school year.
The department stated that “A local education agency (LEA) will not be required to make up school hours that are lost or canceled due to exceptional or emergency circumstances if the LEA implements an Alternative Methods of Instruction (AMI) Plan that is approved by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).”
This means that if a school cancels a school day for an emergency situation, they do not have to make it up unless they do some way of virtual learning.
After this was established, many school districts got the idea of using this method for snow days.
The Wentzville School District established this method at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year.
For the first two snow days, they will be traditional snow days with no makeup days as they were already built in.
For 3-7 snow days that is when students will use AMI days and learn remotely and students will not have to make up the days.
After 8+ days, students will go back to traditional snow days and make up those days at the end of the year.

Due to the winter storm Blair that hit the St. Louis area Saturday, Jan. 4 night, many schools had to cancel schools the entire week after winter break. This was the first time Wentzville schools used the AMI method.
Because of the first time using this method, a lot of opinions about these days emerged.
Morgan Moomey (12) wasn’t a huge fan of the virtual learning.
“I don’t like that a lot of the work assigned on AMI days we also work on in class when we go back to school, so it kind of seems like a waste of time,” Moomey said.
Many students felt the same way, and felt that they would rather have a traditional snow day.
Other students liked the relaxed feel of the AMI days.
“I like AMI days because I get to wake up anytime I want and I got my work done within 20 minutes and had the rest of the day to myself,” Aubrey McClelland (10) said.
High school students were required to log in to Canvas during these days and if they didn’t complete their assigned work, they were considered absent during those days.
Many concerns brought up with the creation of AMI days were what would elementary students do. This is due to them not having Chromebooks and not being old enough to be responsible for themselves.
Kindergarten teacher Candice Mesnier addresses how these days work for younger students.
“The students are given a choice board with several options of activities to choose from. There are activities for all academic areas. The district came up with the choice boards this year, while we have done it in the past,” Mesnier said.
There were some concerns about younger students having to be in front of a screen all day, however they do quite the opposite.
“I feel that it’s much better than us sitting on the screen all day long and interacting with the children,” Mesnier said. “They do not need to sit in front of a computer for that long. Most of the activities that are given are fun and interactive and engage them.”
These days allow the elementary students to have days off school without the stress of hard work.
“It is not hard to do the activities, and we accept all forms of work when they finish. They can take a photo and email it to us, send a hard copy, or even just say that they did it. We make it pretty easy for them. I don’t feel that our kids have many disadvantages with the AMI days,” Mesnier said.
With all virtual learning, there are advantages and disadvantages which leaves the question. Are AMI days worth it?